


On Care and Keeping

by FadedSepia



Series: The Collected Memoirs of Miss Roach of Rivia [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, But Not Roach, Canon-Typical Violence, Non-Human Narrator, POV Animal, POV Roach, Roach is One Horse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24796807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FadedSepia/pseuds/FadedSepia
Summary: ❦❦❦On Care and KeepingorA Practical Guide for the Selection of a Suitable Witcher by a Discerning Horse❦The stables of Kaer Morhen have a surplus of horses, though the keep is forever wanting witchers.With little else to occupy her days, she listens to the returning men grousing, to the old teacher that leans at their fence-rail to mutter his grievances and hone his blades. There will be new boys this year, foundlings and wastrels trailing behind those that winter in the keep, swelling the meagre numbers already awaiting the next round of grasses and dreams.Those here are wanting – she can tell – and few enough in number as to leave her unhopeful for spring.❦❦❦
Series: The Collected Memoirs of Miss Roach of Rivia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793491
Comments: 26
Kudos: 82





	1. In the Walls of Kaer Morhen

**Author's Note:**

> So… This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t, honestly. The plan was one and done, dip my toe into this pool and then scurry away. The plan was _not_ to dive head-first into the loony-end of the pool and drag up another horse-fic.
> 
> If you’re here because you want more fun and sassy horse shade, then – just maybe – you might want to hang on for the third instalment in this series. Which is happening now… (Because _of course_ it is!) That said, I decided the way to go forward was to go backward. Way, way backward, far into the past, to write about when and how Roach came to have Geralt as her witcher. This story is _not nearly so cute_ as the first one. There are parts of it that aren’t happy and – let’s be honest – there’s a fine line between _sassy-and-salty_ and _actually-an-asshole,_ and Roach spends chunks of this story quite callously straddling the _asshole_ side of that line. Please heed the warnings; I included them for a reason.
> 
> As with the previous story, I took liberties with this fic. If you’re here for a canon-perfect story, you may want to back away now.
> 
> I lay the blame for this fic at the feet of everyone who commented on the first story. Many of you asked for this, and here it is.
> 
> Note about horse behaviour: _Yes,_ I know that horses are more likely to kick than bite, but they also don’t live for 100 years and keep a running commentary of snark going in their heads… or _do_ they?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a horse, having seen two years since her foaling, arrives at the place that makes monsters of men.

❦❦❦ 

_**Kaer Morhen  
Year the First ** _

❦

She arrives at the place called Kaer Morhen early in her second spring. Head up but gait wary, she plods along with a dozen others; draught horses and coursing steeds, those bred for the cart like she and dumpy farm ponies, elegant high-steppers and even a long-faced hinny. She’s herded with the others, walked through the heavy gate that’s hastily barred behind them, each prancing on nervous hooves.

There is a stench about the yard, lingering foetid in the air; a scent she’ll soon come to recognize as magic. In this moment, it sets her ears pricking, skittering along her spine as she’s hurried past hall entrances and a sandy lot back to the stable and pastures. The men of this place positively reek of the wretched stink, their blank faces framing eyes that call up deep fears of teeth and claws. The hinny at her shoulder brays, rearing a moment before his halter catches the rope linking the lot of them together, tugging their whole motley train off-balance.

“Easy.” The cat-eyed man’s voice is discomfiting; not so much soothing as so viscerally _wrong_ that – to a one – all of them still.

It brings the intended effect. Cowed, if not comforted, they continue behind him. The hinny trembles as he walks at her shoulder, but raises no further complaint as they moved along. They’re walked past the stables, lead into a fenced yard bounded by ill-repaired walls and thorned hedges, and too tight by half. There he unties each from the halter, and there he leaves them, alone and unfed as night falls.

❦❦❦ 

The paddock is overcrowded, but she can bear the tight quarters; the nearby open pasture is where the _other ones_ wander – horses in shape alone – reeking of the same miasma that clings to the men in this place. They are few in number, but that counts for aught with such unnatural creatures. She watches them from the corner of her vision, sidling closer to the wall; solitarily they stand in the field or lay beneath the trees, lingering alone in their chosen corners long past eventide, eyes reflecting sickly yellow when full dark falls. Then the men call them back, into the stable that, for the past three days, she has seen only from afar.

Whatever else they might be, they are _fed_ like horses, and better than most; she catches the scent of warm oat-mash drifting on the chill morning air. Her stomach churns, nearly empty save for a few stems plucked from beneath the thorn bushes edging one side of their enclosure, hiding the fence behind them from her first notice. She and the rest are hemmed on all sides; too hungry for comfort, let alone leaving. The strain of days on water and weeds would turn ill even the kindest of them, and she would hardly count herself among those humans call gentle-natured. Goddess knows; she has teeth for a reason, one she offers to a stocky blue roan with sharp expedience.

He is not so stupid as she feared, and, large though he may be, he flicks his ears and retreats, leaving her to the last few weeds in this corner. Sparse and stunted, the tiny yellow blossoms crumble on her tongue, but she swallows unflinchingly. She will eat the sharp, glossy leaves of the hedges – even the _thorns_ if she must – if only to stay on her hooves. Already, two among their number have gone down. There is good field beneath those cold husks, and she sorrows at the loss of that meagre bit of green, if nothing else.

❦❦❦ 

It is nigh on – or perhaps _past_ – a week when a man again comes to their tiny field. She is standing, but only just, leaning into the hedge, hide pricked, but too tired to move, let alone to trot closer when called. Her knees are weak, her back still wet from the morning rain that’s left the churned earth sticky as a mire. She can’t say which privation has prompted her shaking, but she knows better than to push her way through the snorting milieu of hoofed bodies shying near the gate; stubbornness aside, a hard knock would send her down, and with no promise she’d find her footing. Trembling at the rear of the paddock, she waits until the rope halter slips over her head, her own brown eyes meeting pensive gold before she follows where he leads.

The long-denied stable box is wide enough that she can turn with ease, or lie fully in the straw that crushes soft beneath her hooves, but all that warrants her notice is the trough along the far wall, full and steaming and-

_Wretched!_

The mere smell of it brings up tears. This _must_ be some error, some sickening jest, but- No; the nipped roan in the stall to her side is already snuffling at his own box, filled with the same acrid mush. She catches sight of a young gelding courser – ginger and black-tailed – already gulping away to her rear.

Others are eating all around her, many faring worse for it. There is a viscous _splat_ as the stench of sick drifts on the air; holding down food such as this is a feat in itself, one she can’t with certainly say she will manage.

The hunger of days on water alone overcomes her, and she relents in her refusal, chewing away at the noxious maceration of vegetables and herbs. The leaves taste spoilt and sour, some so rough and prickling that she struggles in swallowing them, and the roots sting across her tongue like ginger and mint gone rancid. _But it is food;_ disgusting and warm and filling her belly, too long empty to care what foul something reaches it, though most foul it is. She shudders as heat races down her throat and up into her head, flashing bright across her eyes and leaving her with ears that feel filled with cotton-wool. Nausea overcomes her, chased by vertigo, and – fearing her legs won’t support her much longer – she lets herself slump to the hay-strewn floor as the room swims.

❦❦❦ 

She lies on the hay three days, drowning in horrors, unaware of the hours until she wakes into a much changed night. Death floats on the air, rank and cloying, and her nostrils flare as she catches the tang of blood from a neighbouring stall. Getting to her feet, she sees the field lit with twilight haze, though neither moon nor stars shine in the clouded sky. In the stall to her right, the roan slumbers on. At her left, the ginger gelding whinnies, knocking his head against his trough, mouth foamed with spittle; his screaming echoes over the unnerved braying of the other he must have roused. She snorts at him, any thoughts of rest now long flown with such wretched sounds breaking the quiet of the night.

The stable door swings wide, one of the men roused by the same vexing noise. She marks his path as he trods closer, past her own box and into the next, hand already settled above the pommel at his back. He’s swift – a whistle, honed blade slicing the air – and she is grateful as the screams stop. Yellow cat’s eyes blink back at her. She crooks an ear; a clean end to a messy job is worth acknowledgement.

With the air still and calm, she turns away, closing her eyes to rest until dawn breaks.

❦❦❦ 

Their ranks are further reduced when she wakes again – seven trotting into the field where they had numbered twelve in days prior – but one of the men in attendance gives a satisfied nod once they’re turned out. ”Horses fare better than boys, after all.”

She doesn’t know his meaning, but follows his gaze to another, who only shrugs. ”Spare horse is always of use.”

She finds herself more at ease, the horror of the wide fields much lessened now; without fear of the dark, she is as the others, grazing well past nightfall, until a sharp voice bids them return.

❦❦❦ 

_**Kaer Morhen  
Year the Sixth ** _

❦

The crickets have returned with the summer and will spend the night screeching, so she walks herself into her stall and remains even after they’ve supped. She can doze until nightfall at least. There will be no work for her today. She grows bored seeing the same faces each day; why waste unnecessary hours on poor company? The roan is no less dull than he ever has been, left deafened on one side after their trials; the hinny is even less congenial than she.

There were no new faces among her stablemates for some time, neither in her second year there, nor her third or fourth, though there is now a matched bay stallion in this, her seventh summer and sixth among the witchers. Had they freedom of egress and their stable keepers a carriage, they would make a stately pair. At present, their duty is solely to pull the carts on market days, and that is by rotation. With the autumn bite now strong on the wind, the task will soon fall to the draught horses while she spends another season idling in the stalls.

The stables of Kaer Morhen have a surplus of horses, though the keep is forever wanting witchers.

With little else to occupy her days, she listens to the returning men grousing, to the old teacher that leans at their fence-rail to mutter his grievances and hone his blades. There will be new boys this year, foundlings and wastrels trailing behind those that winter in the keep, swelling the meagre numbers already awaiting the next round of grasses and dreams.

Those here are wanting – she can tell – and few enough in number as to leave her unhopeful for spring.

The trials go poorly more often than not, with many a new lad becoming only a new hillock in the pasture. They’re laid deeply, graves dug in moonlight and starshine, or in the inky dark of clouded nights; for the men who dig and those that watch them, there’s little difference in the sight of it.

For her, there is nothing but a weary snort and another protracted wait, each fresh grave prompting the same thought. _That one might have been hers._ She’d much prefer a new witcher to one that returns seeking a fresh mount; reputation notwithstanding, had she a choice, she’d not go with any man so irresponsible as to let a good horse succumb. And, to her mild delight and continued boredom, none deigns to choose her besides, not until the seasons have gilded the leaves another half-dozen times.

❦❦❦ 

_**Kaer Morhen  
Year the Twelfth ** _

❦

Winter lays icily once more upon the keep, a white hush swathing the walls and those within them. The witchers of Kaer Morhen roam wide, and return at intervals, not at any regularly kept time, but oftener than not in winter, gold eyes sharp beneath the frost-edged hoods of their cloaks.

It is one such traveller, arriving on foot in the thin grey light, that first chooses her and takes her out from the numbing cycle of drudgery and idling, aiming to set out well ahead of any hint of thaw. He is tall for a man, with short whiskers and an uneven stride, treading into the stables still reeking of the byways. His gaze, bored and golden and hauntingly placid, settles on her, voice flat as he points. ”That one.”

She is disappointed to be sure, but triflingly so; she’s been keen to break-in a new one, but perhaps setting off with a more experienced witcher is for the best, though she has her doubts regarding his competence in starting off when the snows are this deep upon the roofs and fields. She is not sad to leave behind her the days of training boys who will simply perish with the spring trials, but she has grown fond of this box of hers, of her silent dappled neighbour and the endless string of young and stupid stallions across the wide aisle; the company is amenable, the views pleasant, and the food better still. But _that one_ she is, and so begins what seems an interminable fortnight of preparations.

There are new shoes and _spare_ shoes, heavy blankets and light, and a proper saddle, meant for a man grown and the travelling of long roads, not for the training of stripling youths. There is a new bridle and silver-trimmed tack, and wrappings for her legs; there is armour, thick plate that lies solid and strange across her forehead as it shades her eyes and fronts her breast. She is brushed and trimmed, scraped and rasped and ground, and all of it so unnecessary when she considers that, if she has heard true, she may spend weeks fording swamps and making her bed in bracken and scrub.

She has seen her brethren return, bruised and mangled – ears clipped, eyes lost, haunches raked with the marks of great claws and fearsome teeth – and she expects no luxuries along their way. Horses and their kin are well kept here, but only because they have proved worthy and sturdily built. Were she not in this stable, already she might be set out for little more than stocking a yard with new foals, those that preceded her long-since sent to the knacker.

Accompanying the men of the wolf is their bond, their ransom paid against long lives and keen senses, and it is a pittance in the grander scheme. So it is that she follows when he takes her lead, stands steady when he loads his gear upon her back, walks calmly out through the gated walls that have marked the edge of her world for over a decade. The barred doors of Kaer Morhen close behind them with a long groan and a finite slam.

The witcher climbs upon her back, and they turn eastward against the cutting light of dawn.

❦❦❦ 


	2. In the Company of a Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a horse, long displeased with her lot, finds renewed purpose.

❦❦❦

_**Returned to Kaer Morhen  
Year the First**_

****

❦

****

It is the spring, and, with a score of living behind her, she arrives at Kaer Morhen, returning after six years to whinny at the gate in the burgeoning twilight, slain cockatrice in the cart she hauls behind, the husk of her rider still in her saddle. She is hungry and in want of a good currying and a soft-floored stall. The witcher – for why should she bother with his name when for years he thought no whit for hers – is plucked from her back, laid with only modest care beside the beast whose slaying brought his own death, and someone finally comes to relieve her of the saddle that has for days chafed at her hide.

****

It is the old teacher that does it, eyeing her with veiled surprise as he daubs ointment over the sorest spots. ”Bad fit, then, filly?”

****

_Miserably so._ The death of that man was – to her mind – no great loss; the only tinge of regret she feels is at returning to the roster, waiting again for a travelling companion. She might have stayed wandering beyond the gates, but that buffoon had already pointed her this way, having the gall to expire when they were but a few leagues out. With aught else along this road, the keep remained the most amenable destination.

****

”Well, it’s hardly the worst ending; shame to waste a sturdy horse.” His rough hand pats against her neck.

****

Few leave impressions here, but the swordmaster she regards well, with far greater favour than the rest. His words are rare and plain, his work expert and efficient. He sets her in her former box, flanked again by her prior neighbour to one side and an empty stall to the other.

****

❦❦❦

****

Three days hence, she is turned out into the large pasture with the potter’s field, and, though the faces of her stablemates are somewhat unfamiliar, the routine is much as before her departure. Years mean nothing within these walls; the men that drift through are well familiar, unchanging, with only the rarest handful of new blood to liven the doldrums before meeting their ends. Any novelty comes from new boys and fresh horses, and horses always fare better.

****

For all that they come unknowing, dim-witted and frightened by the barest breeze, they are near-grown when they take the grasses, and sturdier besides. The new batch is in the rear paddock, approaching the end of their first thinning by the look of them. She feels a spark of surprise; three are already down, one among them a rather dumpy and well-fatted mule. She would have expected more grit from that sort. Still, perhaps it is for the best, she thinks, and that takes the rest of her afternoon, the question buzzing like a fly in her brain as she chews clover in the shade of an aspen and watches the hungry milling of the new arrivals; is it worse to die starving and aware or to be cut down well-fed and mad?

****

Perhaps both are merciful, and it is her own condition that is the great sacrifice. No matter; there are spring blossoms and warm bedding for those such as she, and the chance at tomorrow is reward enough. She winnies an admonition toward the starving gaggle. Would that they might stand in silent peace or die and be done with it; they are loud, and she finds herself exasperated.

****

❦❦❦

****

_**Returned to Kaer Morhen  
Year the Third **_

********

❦

********

This trial is worse than others. She’s heard something akin to shock in the whispers of the men; they’ve only the _one_ this time. The grasses took too many in the usual fits, and the remaining boy still drifts in torturous dreams. A lean trial at best, a complete loss at worst. Though, she ponders, if such a place has ever existed to surmount long odds, it’s this one; this place, with its ageless witchers and their interminable, blood-soaked lives.

********

Hooves sinking into the newly turned soil of the potter’s field, she sidesteps closer to her favourite aspen. The roots near the surface mean there will never be graves to upset her walking here, a small mercy, and the early leafing of the wide-spread branches will offer shade long into autumn; a thing that might matter, were it not well after evening. For the moment, the place beneath the aspen offers an out of the way spot to watch the digging. The trials are near over, the youthful dead all buried save one, yet still the two men shovel dirt.

********

It’s a rare thing, when a witcher dies. Once has it happened in all her years within these walls, and she’s thought little of the aftermath since _that one_ was pulled from her saddle. This one met his end at an opportune time; the ground is well-thawed, and the gravediggers have had ample practice with days of burying those taken by the grasses. There is little ceremony – a sword settled over the shrouded corpse, the few handfuls of dirt that follow after – and then the shovels are taken up once more.

********

She pushes to her feet, disappointed as she walks back to her box for the night. This was a waste of her, admittedly, near-limitless time. Still, she can’t help glancing out over the field, the row of tiny hillocks now joined by one lengthier. Boys and witchers, never horses, but that is a fitting fairness. The field is for horses in life; let the witchers have it in death. Her gaze drifts eastward to the keep proper and the lights flickering in the windows. One remains yet unburied.

❦❦❦

When a fortnight passes with no more earth turned in sight of the stars, she knows that – even if he has yet to set foot outside – that last one must have lived. 

********

❦❦❦

********

This boy has been longer abed than any from among the previous lots, but little varies otherwise once he stumbles from the keep and into the yard. In the usual way of things, it is the teacher that brings him, weathered hand firm on a frail shoulder as they cross from yard into stable. Twice they’ll walk the row between the boxes – first down then up – then a third time down until the lad decides. He’ll have lean pickings, this sole survivor.

********

There is a blood-bay gelding, at best in his third year, lovely, but with the temperament likely to draw up bile. The star-faced chesnut is quiet and dim, sure to be pleasant and just as certain to walk her way off a hillock and turn her own leg. A better fit might be the grey, if the lad can earn the coin to feed the insatiable lout. He’ll not select a mule or a pony – not unless he’s quite the dullard – and no boy with any sense would pick one of the draught horses at the start. That leaves only the wanting three, herself, and her long-time neighbour; but the laconic blue roan with his poor ear has always been the teacher’s favourite, so he’ll not be going. This is her third selection in as many years, and – faultless though she might be – she is a dead man’s horse, and humans are an odd lot.

********

They walk the stalls without hurry. The boy stumbles as much as steps, swamped in an outsized black jerkin, eyes furtively lifting as he’s pushed forward past each prospect.

********

She marks his passing with a huff, disappointment mingled with pity; this tiny slip of a lad seems barely fit for choosing a horse, let alone riding one. They ought to have got him properly walking well before they thought to drop him in a saddle. The two have reached the stable doors, and now are turning back. She may think little of all three, but she’s pegged the blood; with a visage to match the fierceness of his moods, he _looks_ the sort that would best suit a witcher.

********

It’s quite a shock when the child passes the courser by. He looks to neither the chesnut nor the grey, but does pause beside a yearling mule; a good choice, well-bred and sure-footed, but she’s never _seen_ a witcher on anything save a horse. _Poor stupid lad._ The old teacher may be patient, but he’ll not give up his blue, and she doubts her quiet neighbour would take well to a new rider. She rolls her eyes and turns away to her breakfast. It seems he’ll be slow in making his selection; there’s time to finish her meal.

********

She’s nosing at the last leavings of her oats, head full into the trough when a cough-roughened little voice rasps out, “That one.”

********

She whickers softly, not even needing to look; the boy has gone and picked the roan. _Silly thing._ The elder witcher is doting on occasion, but hardly doddering; he’ll choose a mount himself if his hand is forced. Or he may press a decision from the boy, and that could prove a brief amusement. _A momentary distraction,_ at the very least, a bright spot against the dull repetition of her days, and one she’s loathe to miss. Rounding to look, she freezes at the sight of a tiny face gazing in over _her_ stall door. 

********

The teacher’s voice matches the confusion seizing her mind. “What?”

********

The child points into her box again, head tipping sideways.

********

”She’s ill luck, boy.” There is something half fond in his words.

********

Still she shies, drawing back a step.

********

The boy’s hands clutch at her door, cat’s eyes flicking to her own as he nods. ”That one.”

********

_That one_ once more, though at least _this one_ – this _boy_ – is unspoilt by bad habits, if he is just as certainly a bit mad. Her reputation outside of these walls is hardly secret, and he can’t be right in the head to insist upon her. There are always things unknown; madness, malice, stupidity. She may find him altogether noxious. She might yet fail to teach him the proper manner in which she ought to be addressed and treated – _That one, indeed!_ – however, any of that will come with time. Now is a moment for quiet consideration. In this, the summer of her twenty-fourth year, she has, at long last, a little witcher of her own.

********

It is, at the very least, unexpected.

********

The teacher swings wide her stall door, and the lad steps in, altogether too quick and unsteady for her liking as he totters up to her. It is only proper that, having been so herself moments earlier, she should inspect him as well.

********

He is gangly and dour of face, as all his kind are at the start, and so wavering in his movements that she is wary to tread too close; fearful that even the slight whisk of her tail will bowl him over. It’s plain that he has been underfed these past weeks, if he has eaten at all. With hair deathly white and sallow skin drawn tight across his high-boned cheeks, he is a hideous picture; more corpse than boy, and pitiable to look upon. She mightn't believe him yet living without seeing him moving of his own volition, free of any scent of decay.

********

Still, wretch that he is, he is _here_ and _hers,_ and – for the moment – she finds herself content with him.

********

She butts her nose into his palm, gladdened when he does not immediately tumble over from the strain, well pleased by the meagre patting of his trembling hand against her neck.

********

❦❦❦

********

_**Apprenticeship  
Year the Second** _

********

❦

********

Her boy the others call _Geralt;_ her he has named _Roach._ She first despaired at his choice, but has done her utmost to take it kindly. He is young and still human enough to be rather too stupid to know better, but that isn’t his fault.

********

She _is_ ruddy brown and fast, with wide-set eyes and ears that tick more than most. Her size belies her sturdiness, and she won’t shy from the truth that she is willful, tenacious to a fault and – she will admit – a small and difficult target. Perhaps, she thinks, _Roach_ is meant to compliment those traits, to call to mind her resilience; or perhaps she cannot so much as manage to fool herself with that consideration.

********

It is not the worst moniker, and her boy says it without malice. It is the first name she has ever had – discounting _Girl_ or _Filly_ or _Cursed Horse,_ or the woefully nondescript _That One_ – she certainly can’t ask for another just yet. She thinks it best to take the time to feel this one out first. Should she decide against it, it will be no large thing to change it. Her boy uses the name little enough in their daily rides and practices, though she hardly finds herself wanting for his words. He is quiet, and she is grateful.

********

Few witchers are _conversational,_ but there are some that _talk,_ and often, to themselves and their horses, and – sometimes she thinks – to ghosts only they can see. Her boy _listens,_ spends his energy on mastering his lessons instead of questioning them, and he is as much a miser of his effort as he is his words. _Efficient, this one,_ and that will be well when they leave this place, although they’ve many years yet until his apprenticeship is over. For now, he can save his effort for his training, for the old teacher is readying a manoeuver she recognizes well, and her boy will need that strength to regain his feet.

********

She winnies, calling to the others in the paddock to watch as, once again, the swordmaster sends her boy to the ground, to tumble in a clattering heap of practice sword and oversized armour. Hers he might be, but surely that affords her every right to amuse herself with his follies. The blue roan whickers from the far end of the field, joining her in shared amusement.

********

❦❦❦

********

_**Apprenticeship  
Year the Fifth** _

********

❦

********

She can say with certainty that her boy is unlike the others who have taken the grasses; aberrant from the rest in this place, either freshly-tried or well-seasoned with hunting. Nose long accustomed to the scent of magic from the witchers of the keep, she yet finds her ears pricking when she catches whiff of him. There remains something _else_ about him – as there always has been – not altogether unpleasant; a top-note absent from every other she’s heretofore known within these walls.

********

Whatever else he may be, he is at least even in his temperament. Boys do not take the grasses half so well as one might hope, and all awake with dispositions much changed. That craft of magic witchers call the trials leaves them each altered – cutting away the rough edges of their passions – but she has seen enough years to know that not all of them are ground smooth and sensible. There are sparks of joy and hints of sorrow, yes, but there is also malice yet in many of those here, born for some from cruelty, and for others arising from an unfathomable apathy. In this, she fairs well, for while her boy – _her Geralt_ – might appear sullen, morose even, he is neither inattentive nor cruel.

********

When set to tasks physical in nature, he neither performs poorly nor evinces any notable defect, save the rather obvious – if understandable – ones that arise from his being human. He rides excellently, and keeps a light hand at the reins, never treating her as if she doesn’t know best how to move about on her own four hooves. Thus far, he retains his sanity intact in his apprenticeship, and has thoroughly proved his capabilities – with both blade and book – and yet…

********

Still, she finds herself _concerned_ for him. Duty and ownership are close cousins to affection, and she cannot say which among the three draws her to keep such constant watch on her boy. Roach can admit only that he has grown in importance, no longer merely a thing to be _had,_ but someone in which to take pride.

********

He has learnt to treat her like all of his weapons; put to heavy use, but kept well all the same, and she minds it not. Her boy is her means to a life outside these walls, and she a tool in his arsenal, meant to keep him alive in his work. Theirs is an arrangement of utmost practicality, nearly shattered when – after practicing together well past eventide – he pats against her neck as he finishes her currying. “Good horse, Roach.”

********

She stills, frozen from the points of her ears to the last hair tipping her tail, her only response the slide of an eye to focus on his face, to the corners of lips turned up in the barest of smiles.

********

“Good girl.” Geralt’s palm, warm and already growing calloused, pets at her a second time before he turns. Her boy is out of the stable, well on his way to his own bed when she again remembers to move.

********

It is the third day of autumn in her twenty-ninth year, and Roach is heartily puzzled.

********

Perhaps his words, and the long unfelt warmth they bring, are – to her – _good,_ she thinks, rolling the notion about in her head. It is many a year since she’s courted any such thought; she means to savour it, if only for its rarity.

********

❦❦❦

********

_**Apprenticeship  
Year the Tenth** _

********

❦

********

“Leave it.”

********

The apprentice fussing with her tack freezes only a moment before he’s out of the stable, silent and swift, and she appreciates that; her boy knows better, needing not even the hint of instruction to slacken the buckle behind her head. He is thorough in checking her over – forehead to fetlock – but, as ever, gentle all the same. As with so many times before, she is fully outfitted, his necessaries and her own are loaded onto her back before he leads her from her box for the final time this season. It is only when they’ve walked into the yard that her boy climbs into the saddle. His hands are lax on the reins, knees giving the barest nudge of permission, for she already knows the direction to take.

********

It is the last day of spring, the last day of his apprenticeship, when they depart, her boy yet green at barely one and one score years, and she, by her counting, having reached a respectable thirty-four. _Although, perhaps she oughtn’t count._ A lady should have some air of mystery, after all; mayhap she will let her boy number the years for them both.

********

He is, they say, a witcher well-trained and a man grown, and she might almost believe the latter true. It is a surety that his face has finally filled to match his features, but the years weigh strangely on his visage. With straight nose and prominent cheekbones, he might be handsome, were the illusion not set to ruin by the furrow that has already sat too long upon his brow, so as to leave a permanent crease twixt his eyes. In full black garb, and with sword pommel visible over his shoulder, he certainly _looks_ the part of a witcher proper. Still, he remains her boy as they pass beneath the arched gateway, neither sparing a glance as they set foot upon the road. The heavy gates of Kaer Morhen close behind them with a resounding bang, bringing an end to the last year of her boy’s apprenticeship.

********

_Yes._ That was the _last_ year, she thinks, and _this_ day the beginning of the _next._ Roach makes a mental adjustment as she pauses on the thoroughfare – _Year the First of the Travels of Miss Roach of Rivia –_ and, thinking it a bit too long, but nonetheless necessary, she includes an addendum – _Accompanying Geralt, Her Witcher._

Her boy pats a hand against her neck.

********

She whickers softly to herself, and they continue on their way.

********

❦❦❦

********

_**Accompanying Geralt  
Year the First** _

********

❦❦❦

********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And away they go, on to grand adventures (and a fair number of follies as well), but that is a tale for another day…


End file.
